Existing systems for managing the configuration of commercially-available OS2200 systems or other operating systems running on high-end mainframe computers display the hierarchical structure of the system configuration using text menus. Text menu based configuration management systems enable a user to view and manage a text representation of a single level of the hierarchical structure for an OS2200 system configuration via a screen on a user interface.
In general, the hierarchical structure of an OS2200 system configuration is formed by the upward and downward connections or parent and child relationships between various levels of symbolic and real hardware components. Since real or symbolic hardware components in an OS2200 system configuration can have more than one upward connection to a parent hardware component, the hierarchical structure may include multiple instances of a single hardware component. For example, an input-output (I/O) hardware component, such as a disk or tape drive, can have multiple upward connections to different control units. Accordingly, the hierarchical structure includes an instance of the drive for each upward connection to a different control unit.
In another example, the hierarchical structure may include multiple instances of a subsystem. A subsystem is a symbolic hardware component that represents connections between an I/O channel and one or more control units. A particular system configuration may include multiple subsystems, with different subsystems having different rules for connectivity. A subsystem may have multiple upward connections to a single channel, or may have multiple upward connections to different channels. In any case, separate instances of a single subsystem may have different configurations, i.e., may have a different mapping of connections between control units and a channel. Consequently, the hierarchical structure of an OS2200 system configuration forms a tree-like structure rather than a true tree structure since a single hardware component can have multiple upward connections.
Text menu based configuration management systems enable a user to traverse the hierarchical tree-like structure of the system configuration through a hierarchy of text menus. Each menu or screen displays a text representation of the selected level of configuration to the user. The user can navigate to a desired level of configuration by selecting text items from a menu. When the user selects a text item from a menu, the user is presented with an associated submenu that displays the selected subset of the hierarchical structure. Thus, a user must view numerous screens in order to view the parent/child relationship between the various levels of hardware components. In other words, a user must traverse the hierarchical structure by switching from screen to screen to discern what hardware components are in the system configuration and how the hardware components are connected and configured. Alternatively, a user may print configuration and connection reports, or draw a configuration may by hand in order to a see a full view of the hierarchical structure.